In a computer network, computer systems are joined together to exchange information and share resources. Thus, a computer network functions as a distributed computing environment in which networked computer systems provide users with the capabilities of the distributed resources of the network. Functions provided by a computer network include connecting, integrating or allowing access to remote files, databases, or printers, as well as distributing a process among multiple systems, allowing for an application to process on two or more computers. In such a distributed computing environment, the components of an application may reside on various machines, but work together. For example, each workstation in a computer network often provides a user interface, local analysis, and data processing, while larger, host computers, for example a file server or a mainframe, may maintain a large set of data files, coordinate access to large databases, and perform larger scale data processing.
In a distributed processing environment, each application or process must be able to communicate and exchange information with other applications or processes in the environment. Currently, many inter-applications or inter-process exchanges are performed using a messaging technique commonly referred to as message queuing. In message queuing, a first (or “client”) process passes a message that includes a request for processing by a second (or “server”) process. The messages queues at the server process, awaiting handling thereby. In turn, the server process returns to the client process an alert or notification when the results from the server process become available. The server process may send additional alerts or notifications to other applications or processes beyond the client process.
A message queuing messaging technique may be further characterized as being a “trigger initialized” messaging technique if a notification is issued to the server process upon placement of the request message in the message queue and the message queue meets certain specified criteria. Numerous middleware software programs exist commercially to facilitate such data transfers. One example of such a middleware software program which uses a trigger initialized message queuing messaging technique comes from International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk, N.Y., (IBM) who provides commercially a software family known as MQ SERIES, a file based queue system. IBM has stated that the MQ SERIES is able to connect any two computing systems in common commercial use, such as a business component, for example BUSINESSWARE BUSINESS PROCESS INTEGRATION made commercially available by VITRIA of Sunnyvale, Calif.